Did you know that March is Women’s History Month? I didn’t until I tuned in to BBC Woman’s Hour and got some new book recommendations on Women’s History, (it’s research, honestly).
Two academics, Selina Todd and Krista Cowman, were discussing how women have been presented in history (or not presented) with the presenter Jenni Murray. Jenni asked them about their favourite books.
Krista replied with The Suffrage Movement by Sylvia Pankhurst and Selina had two contributions, Hidden Lives by Margaret Foster and Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism By Kristen R Ghodsee, which surely has to win my ‘best history book title ever’ award. It sounds fascinating, too, as this Guardian review from Suzanne Moore attests.
The BBC has some interesting resources available about women in history which you can see via this link.
7 Books on Women in History
Here’s a list below of the book titles featured in the photo. They probably don’t all qualify as ‘academic, (whatever that is), but I for one am thrilled to see the popularising of women’s stories.
Mary Beard – Women and Power A manifesto.
With wry wit, Britain’s best known classicist revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women. (I have previously interviewed Mary, see here.)
Leah Leneman – The Scottish Suffragettes
This is the story of the women’s suffrage movement in Scotland, from the early Victorian era to the winning of limited rights in 1918. It is a remarkable record of lively, articulate and strong-minded individuals, from all walks of life, united by the fact that they were not regarded as equal citizens – an injustice that led, for some, to uncharacteristic law-breaking and spells in prison.
Deborah Orr – Motherwell
I’ve included this for two reasons; one, I loved Deborah’s columns for the Guardian and had a sort of relationship with her via private DMs on Twitter and I want everyone to make her book a roaring success, and, two, it’s a good account of what life was like for women growing up in recent history. Deborah died last year, far too young.
Just shy of 18, Deborah Orr left Motherwell – the town she both loved and hated – to go to university. It was a decision her mother railed against arm the moment the idea was raised. Win had very little agency in the world, every choice was determined by the men in her life.
Rosalind Miles – The Women’s History of the World
This is one of the older books, published in 1989 and memorable (to me) for its witty strap line ‘The Phallusy of History’.
Men dominate history because they write it. Women’s vital part in the saying of the world has been consistently undervalued or ignored….This brilliant and absorbing book turns the spotlight on the hidden side of history to present a fascinating new view of the world, overturning our preconceptions to restore women to their rightful place at the centre of the worldwide story of revolution, empire, war and peace.
Cathy Newman – Bloody Brilliant Women
Cathy Newman is a news presenter on Channel 4. The strap line for this book is ‘The Pioneers, Revolutionaries and Geniuses Your History Teacher Forgot to Mention.’
In this fresh, opinionated history, Cathy Newman introduces all the brilliant women you should have heard of learned about in school but didn’t. Some names like Emmeline Pankhurst, Vera Brittain and Marie Stopes, will be familiar. But who remembers engineer and motorbike racer Beatrice Shilling? Or Dorothy Lawrence, the journalist who achieved her ambition to become a First world war correspondent by pretending to be a man?
Jenni Murray – A History of the World in 21 Women
Well, it’s Jenni Murray, innit? Actually Dame Jenni Murray. I heard Jenni speak on this book at the Edinburgh Book Festival and she was fascinating. I already had it so didn’t queue up for an autographed copy afterwards, (which meant I got to the drinks tents before it filled up so not a bad move.)
Jenni Murray gives the lie to Thomas Carlyle’s infamous declaration that ‘the history of the world is but the biography of great men’. Woman have played just as great a role in the history of humankind, only for their own tales to be marginalised, censored and forgotten. Their names should be shouted from the rooftops.
Helena Reckitt (editor) – Art and Feminism
One of my aims of this collection has been to identify struggles and differences between feminist artists of different generations. With this in mind the collection has been organised into broadly historical sections in order to present the experiences, ideas and voices of key practitioners in their original time frame.
And finally, an extra one for my granddaughter.
Kate Pankhurst – Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World
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Posted on March 12th, 2020 by Jane
